Time To Go

His neighborhood was like one of hundreds that appear along the West Coast. You know the kind, the ones where old people choose to spend their final days in peace, quiet and safety. Ones free from the din of traffic, crime and especially kids. Prim little homes with colored rock yards rather than green grass.

Mr. Jack had long been retired from the bank. Yet he was neither young nor was he old in appearance. He was neither wealthy nor was he poor. He was simply and in between guy in nearly all aspects of his life. He was efficient and thrifty as well. Perhaps even to a fault some people thought. There never was quite enough money in his budget to send an occasional donation to the local public television station, the Red Cross nor any charity for that matter let alone the church. Mr. Jack did not attend any church. There always was enough money to spend on a nice car or take an occasional fast woman out for the evening whenever he wanted to. Which was fairly often of course.

Over the years every so often a neighbor would pass away which was quite normal given the state of the real purpose of retirement communities to begin with. Most of the time these events went unnoticed by Mr. Jack. One neighbor two houses up lost his wife one February and Mr. Jack did not become aware of this until October. "Sorry to hear that" said Mr. Jack to the woman's spouse one day as he was pruning his Chinese Plum Tree. "Nobody gets out of this world alive though. We all have to go."

Being the frugal man that he was, his clothing, the furnishings of his home reflected his frugalness. He always purchased black socks to insure they always matched. Toilet paper was always single layer when possible to ensure economy. He slept in a small bed with a mattress made in Mexico that he had paid $138 for brand new. Not completely void of humor he referred to it as his "Boy Scout bed" as he supervised the work of a cleaning woman that came to the house once a month.

The mattress would creak from time to time. Not really a creak but a different noise. More like a tapping sound. Rhythmic. Was it caused by his breathing? The position he was laying in? Was it the grandfather clock just outside in the living room? Was it just his imagination? It was not something that happened every night. It was just now and then. It never happened during his daily afternoon naps.

One night the tapping started again. Mr. Jack pulled himself out from between the covers and stood in the dark. Listening. Then he heard something else. He walked into the living room and there stood a tall, murky figure with a sharply pointed, wooden stake in one hand and a large mallet in the other. "Bet you thought we forgot you didn't you Mr. Jack?"